Derek Mahon Flashcards
Ismay’s vivd recollection of the tragic night:
“As I sat shivering on the dark water I turned to ice to hear my costly life go thundering down”
appeals to our senses (can see the objects descending into the water):
“prams, pianos, sideboards, winches, boilers bursting and shredded ragtime”
Ismay watched his: with the ship
“life go thundering down”
(After the Titanic) we can feel the:
“shivering cold”
image of drowning:
“I sank as far as any/hero”
Ismay’s life is now very bleak, he is forced to:
“hide” in a “lonely house”
Ismay is haunted by the:
“dim/lost faces”
sense Ismay’s sense of remorse when his:
“poor soul/screams out in the starlight”
Mahon challenges our perception of Ismay as a complete villain:
“include” him in our “lamentations”
As Oates walks away:
“the tent recedes beneath its crust of rime”
snow (Antartica)
“howling snow”
Oates (vertigo)
“frostbite was replaced by vertigo”
huge physical and mental effort of Oates:
“goading his ghosts in to the howling snow”
Mahon considers Oates huge self-sacrifice:
“need we consider it some sort of crime? this numb self-sacrifice of the weakest?no”
(As it Should Be) speaker depersonalising his victim:
“a mad bastard”
(As it Should be) they:
“gunned him down”
(As it Should be) justification for the murder:
“is as it should be” “the air blows softer since his departure”
(Grandfather) images from his working life:
“gantries” ‘boiler- rooms”
the way the “boiler -rooms” and “gantries”:
“rolled away”
(Grandfather) grandfather habitually rises:
“up at six”
(Grandfather) busies himself with various and unexplained projects:
“a block of wood? or a box of nails”
(Grandfather) mischievous and playful character of Grandfather:
“like a four year old”
(Grandfather) Grandfather:
“soon recovered”
(Grandfather) refusing to become old, he now winds :
“the clock against the future”
(Grandfather) final phrase:
“then his light goes out”
(Kinsale) reference to rain:
“rain we knew is a thing of the past”
(Kinsale) sun:
“steaming with sun”
(Kinsale) yachts are:
“dancing in the bay”
(Kinsale) upbeat atmosphere where a future:
“forbidden to no one”
(Kinsale) compares what to what?
“yachts” to “race horses”
(Kinsale) optimistic note (ending):
“we contemplate at last/ Shining windows”
